Keep the Focus On the Buyer (Part 5 In the Series)

**Note: This is the final part of our five-part series on getting off to the right start in appointments.

Previous articles in the series:

• - Generating curiosity
• - Generating instant rapport
• - Generating instant credibility
• - Start appointments right

Above all, keep the conversation focus on your buyer. After all, the reason you’re there is to fact-find and evaluate her problems and her organization’s problems. It isn’t to be an overpaid professional visitor. A salesperson who fails at this task always finds a way to turn the conversation back to himself. He always has a story to one-up his buyer. He never asks questions that could take conversations even one step deeper. He can always manage to get off-track, causing his own buyer to lose focus and interest.

In order to generate instant credibility, instant rapport, and curiosity, you’ve got to have a friend first. As you focus on the other person. I simply can’t state things better than Dale Carnegie did many years ago in How to Win Friends and Influence People. Another great bok to read as a follow-up is The People Principle, by Ron Willingham. Make these two books staples in your library. Read them and re-read them. Practice the tips explained.

And in the meantime, a few quick follow-up questions you can ask to avoid turning the conversation back to yourself:

• “Wow! Why is that?”
• “That’s really interesting. Why do you suppose things are that way?”
• “You must have learned a heck of a lesson there…”
• “What a hard way to learn THAT lesson…”

Best of luck as you strive to make your first appointments even more successful!